Powerful Insight: A SimilarWeb.com Review

This is a sponsored post.

I love SEO tools, which means I got really excited when I was asked to try out SimilarWeb.com on behalf of SEJ. I was given the Pro account to check the product out and I quickly realized that SimilarWeb Pro isn’t just an SEO tool; it’s actually like having a pair of x-ray goggles you hope your competition doesn’t know about.

From the start, I was impressed with the amount of information you get just from their free feature on their landing page. Simply type in any website in the search box and check out what comes up.

For the results, you’ll find:

• Monthly Visits
• Geography
• Search Terms
• Percentage of Social Traffic
• Referring Sites
• Visitor Interest

and the list goes on.

Website Insights

Which really got me wondering, with so much for free – what site information does SimilarWeb offer in the pro version?

Keyword Insights

Let’s look at the organic keywords as an example. Not only were hundreds of keywords listed, but you are also able to see which words saw an increase in search traffic and, adversely, which words seemed to lose footing in the search results. This would be very helpful in monitoring your top keywords. You are also able to sort the column based on the change in increase.

This feature can also give you some great ideas for creating content. If you are seeing huge interest in a few keywords, that should give you some ideas for articles and videos. Also, if you are seeing keyword growth on competitors’ sites, you may want to jump on those as well.

The dashboard also shows you what percentage of traffic is from organic keywords and what percentage is coming from PPC ads – for both your site and your competitors. This way you can gauge if you should bid for a keyword or just allow the organic traffic to come through.

You will also see which search engines are driving traffic to your site.

Let me ask you this:

• Would knowing how much mobile traffic is going to your site be helpful?
• Would knowing your competition’s PPC campaigns and keywords give you some ideas?
• Would you like to know the display ads and what landing pages your competitors are buying traffic on?
• Would you like to see all of those ‘not provided’ keywords you can’t see in Google Analytics?

If you answered YES to any of those questions, the video below can give you more info:

Mobile Traffic, Keyword Ads, and Display Ads – Oh My!

Screenshot taken August 2014

As you can see in the image above, SimilarWeb Pro pulls PPC campaigns and keywords from any site. Not only that, it will show you the display ads the site is running, along with where the media buys are from.

If you really  like charting out your competition, you will be able to watch the longest running campaigns and can see which display ads, PPC ads, and words are working best for them.

You and Your Online Competition

How much search traffic do you have for a keyword and how much does your competitor have? If you want to find out, then use the Compare feature in SimilarWeb Pro to see the percentage of traffic you and your competition get for keywords.

So where do you compare with your competition? SimilarWeb Pro gives you the option of comparing up to four competitors’ sites. The program will show you who is getting more PPC traffic versus organic, as well as their PPC campaigns and keywords. Basically, every report you can see for your site you can now see compared next to your competition.

Online Traffic Results of the Ice Bucket Challenge for the ALS Website

SimilarWeb Pro is not just an SEO tool; it’s really a sales tool, a recruitment tool, media buying tool, and much more. Here are just a few of the multiple ways you could use SimilarWeb Pro both for yourself and your clients:

• Use the mobile traffic report to sell mobile optimized pages
• Track affiliate links to recruit affiliates or advertising partners
• Check out competitors’ media placement for ideas for your clients
• Gain insight into which keywords are bringing in more traffic and create content around those words
• See which traffic source is sending the most traffic and concentrate your efforts there
• Use the social media report to up-sell clients on your social media services

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed this program and the insight it offers. Not to mention, it is really easy to understanding all the charts and graphs due to the excellent design and clickablity of the chart elements. The use of color to distinguish different traffic sources just makes it that much simpler and enjoyable to work with.

Using the reports for clients so they can see the value of SEO, mobile, etc. compared to their competitors would more than pay for the monthly cost for the Pro account.

Have you tried SimilarWeb? Please feel free to share your experiences in the comments below or ask any questions.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by SimilarWeb. I received a trial account for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own.